By Zweli Martin Dlamini

MBABANE: A patient made a shocking discovery on Wednesday after realizing that the medication he received from the Mbabane Government Hospital had expired.

*Sibusiso Sikhondze who immediately alerted this Swaziland News said he made the discovery after noticing that the expiry date was fraudulently covered with a sticker depicting a suspicious expiry date of July 2022 yet the covered date suggest that the medication expired in September 2021.

“I became suspicious after learning that the expiry date sticker was completely different from the container and when I removed it, I discovered that the medication long expired but it was covered with the sticker. We have been experiencing deaths these days and now we understand that that as patients, we are being treated with expired medication”, he said.

It has been disclosed that the expired medication was for patients struggling with a bones disease and Government has been struggling to procure drugs after failing to pay suppliers, hundreds of Swazis allegedly died since the health crisis erupted in this tiny Kingdom of eSwatini.

Reached for comments, Mayibongwe Masangwane, the Secretary General of the Swaziland Democratic Nurses Union(SWADNU) confirmed that the various Government hospitals were dominated by expired medication. 

“It’s true that we are faced with challenges of expired medication and these expired drugs are poisonous hence we appeal to the public not to accept it. Recently, a truck from the medical stores visited the various hospitals as if they were delivering drugs yet these were expired drugs. Government wanted to spread propaganda so that the public can blame us as if we don’t want to give them medication yet the truck was delivering expired drugs”, said the Secretary General of the Nurses Union.

Reached for comment, Dr Simon Zwane, the Principal Secretary in the  Ministry of Health referred comments to Dr Vusi Magagula, the Director of Health Services.

“Kindly check with the Director of Health Services Nkhosi”, said the Principal Secretary.

The questionnaire was then forwarded to the Director of Health Services Dr Vusi Magagula as per the directive of the PS who said they were working on the issue.

“We are working it,”said the Director of Health Services.

Reached for comments, Colani Maseko, the President of the Swaziland National Union of Students(SNUS) said the situation would get worse if Swazis delayed to rise and demand democracy.

“The solution here is not to march to the Government hospital to deliver a petition but confront the system collectively. As the people of Swaziland, we have nothing to lose but a country to gain”, said the Students Union President.

Eswatini is ruled by King Mswati, a multi-billionaire absolute Monarch who lives  a lavish lifestyle with taxpayers money in a country where about 70% of the population lives below the poverty line.